Sandy Hook Elementary getting extra vacation days

Gun control march in Washington D.C. on Saturday. (by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)

Sandy Hook Elementary School is being given three extra vacation days in February to help the school community recover from the trauma of deadly shootings that claimed the lives of 20 students and six teachers in December.

Teachers, administrators, students and staff at Sandy Hook will now have a full week off in mid-February instead of a two-day vacation that had already been scheduled for the entire Newtown Public School District, thanks to a vote by the Newtown Board of Education last week. Connecticut education officials have agreed to allow Sandy Hook to have a school schedule shorter than the state-mandated 180 days, according to NewTown Patch.com. Six days of school were lost at Sandy Hook after the shootings.

The board also voted to keep intact a week-long vacation in April for district public schools, and it approved a measure to give all district staff two additional days off, though they cannot be taken near already scheduled vacations.

“This is a very compassionate move by the board,” Superintendent Janet Robinson said. “I agree with it.”

Members of the Newtown Board of Education also are going to ask the state legislature to award workers’ compensation benefits for teachers and staff who were traumatized by the killings, a move made in the past for police, according to the Stamford Advocate.

A group of Newtown residents joined nearly 1,000 people in a march on the Mall in Washington on Saturday to push Congress to pass gun-control measures.